The Minister for Social and Family Affairs has expressed "unease" at the Government's move to legalise the controversial practice of charging older people with medical cards for nursing home care.
Mr Brennan said: "The reality is that older people were being charged without a legal basis. In an ideal world we shouldn't be charging them for nursing home care. I do feel uneasy about the practice."
Mr Brennan hoped that, depending on State finances, the service could be provided free at some stage in the future.
"Hopefully we will get to a point where older people in this situation are paying very little, or nothing at all. As the country gets better off, we can begin to examine this," he said.
It was confirmed in recent weeks that the Government was deducting money from the pensions of older people in State-run nursing homes, despite repeated warnings that the practice was illegal.
The Government sought to rush through emergency legislation to make the deductions legal, but the President, Mrs McAleese, has referred the law to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality.
If the Bill is ruled to be unconstitutional, the State would face additional costs of around €100 million a year.
The Minister is also planning to end the automatic practice of health authorities seizing the pension books of older people in public nursing homes and providing them with "pocket money". He said this was "demeaning" for older people and they should be given greater control over their finances if they wished.
"I'm concerned that the dignity of older people be protected. There is a more human way of doing this. Even the notion and term 'pocket money' is demeaning. In some cases the pocket money is as little as €5."
Mr Brennan said he hoped that, in consultation with health authorities, older people would be allowed to hold onto their pensions and pay any charges from their own finances.
"It should be up to older people what they want to do. If they are happy with the pocket money system and don't want to worry about bills, that's fine. But there should be a choice there."
The Minister, along with his colleague, the Minister for Health, Ms Harney, is also planning to increase the number of people who receive the carer's allowance.
The move is aimed at freeing up more hospital beds and taking pressure off A&E units by encouraging more relatives to look after sick or older people at home.
Mr Brennan said there were plans to increase the number of people in receipt of the allowance from 22,000 to 49,000. "I'd like to see the further expansion in the number of full-timer carers and this is one way of encouraging that. It keeps people out of hospitals and nursing homes."
The weekly carer's allowance, worth €153.60, and the annual respite grant, worth €1,000, are likely to be increased significantly in next year's Budget.
The cost of extending the carer's allowance, along with improvements to the respite grant, are likely to cost in the region of €300 million. The cost of the existing carer's allowance for 2005 will exceed €200 million.
Official figures show that more than 40,000 people provide more than six hours care per day, but half of this number receive a carer's allowance under means-testing rules. Another 8,000 people provide four to six hours a day of unpaid care, 15,400 people provide two to four hours care each day, while 85,000 provide up to two hours care a day.
